Early 20th Century Migration and Wartime Refugees

How shipping helped diverse port communities grow

Britain's diverse port communities did not begin with migration after the Second World War. By the early twentieth century, international trade and Britain's imperial connections had already brought seafarers from many backgrounds to British ports. Employment aboard British merchant ships connected places overseas with ports such as Cardiff, London and Liverpool.

Cardiff provides a clear example of how this happened. Its nineteenth-century coal trade had encouraged dock building and attracted workers. By the early twentieth century, Butetown and the surrounding docklands, known as Tiger Bay, had become an established multi-ethnic community. People of at least 50 nationalities are estimated to have settled there over its development. Residents came from Africa, Asia, the Middle East, the Caribbean and Europe, including Spain, Italy, Ireland and Norway, as well as rural Wales.

Migrants helped build the docks, worked aboard ships and supported the businesses serving the port. Some sailors stayed only while waiting for their next voyage; others made a permanent home. Small Somali communities had developed in Cardiff and London by the end of the nineteenth century and continued to grow. British shipping routes through the Red Sea and Indian Ocean provided Somali men with opportunities to join ships travelling to Britain.

Community support and unequal treatment

Port communities were more than collections of workers. In Tiger Bay, residents worked and socialised together, intermarried, and shared food, music and traditions. Boarding houses and places of worship helped newcomers find support and maintain connections with home.

The Somali seafarer Ibrahim Ismaa’il described one such network. A boarding-house keeper, ’Abdi Langara, provided meals, kept sailors' money while they were at sea and received their letters. This made the boarding house a practical centre of community life, especially for people whose work repeatedly took them away.

Close relationships within the community did not remove racism outside it. Some outsiders portrayed Tiger Bay as dangerous and treated its residents with suspicion. Ismaa’il's experiences also show that responses varied between individuals: he was welcomed into the Whiteway community in the Cotswolds in 1922, but several London lodging houses refused him accommodation in 1924 because he was black. His connection to Britain and wartime service did not guarantee equal treatment.

The First World War: welcome, work and suspicion

The First World War, 1914–18, both brought new refugees to Britain and changed the treatment of people already living there. In Cardiff, Belgian refugees began arriving in September 1914 after Germany invaded Belgium. Crowds welcomed them at the railway station and offered accommodation, food and money. Families took in orphaned children, who attended local schools. Their reception reflected sympathy for people displaced by an enemy invasion.

Other residents experienced suspicion rather than welcome. People believed to have enemy sympathies, or who had foreign-sounding names, could be shunned or imprisoned. Some foreign-born Cardiff residents who had lived there for more than 30 years suffered this treatment. Long residence did not necessarily protect someone when wartime fears made their origins seem more important than their place in the community.

Wartime contributions were not limited to fighting at the front. Shipping and dock work sustained essential supplies. Cardiff's shipyard workers and miners were among those in reserved occupations: jobs considered so important to the war effort that workers were excused from military service. Seafarers such as Ismaa’il also served during the war. Migrants could therefore contribute to Britain's wartime needs while still facing prejudice.

Racial violence after the First World War

Peace did not immediately bring security. Returning servicemen sought employment, and competition for jobs and housing intensified tensions. Some white residents blamed black and Asian workers for their difficulties. Racism, including hostility towards relationships between white women and black men, helped turn these pressures into violence.

In June 1919, racial riots in Cardiff targeted non-white residents and their homes and businesses. Three men were killed. Ismaa’il recalled joining other Somalis to defend ’Abdi Langara's boarding house. Attackers set part of the building alight, and several defenders were wounded before the police arrived.

This episode shows both the vulnerability of migrant communities and their actions in protecting one another. Economic hardship helped create tension, but prejudice shaped who was blamed and attacked. The port's dependence on migrant labour had not produced universal acceptance of its workers.

Why Jewish refugees sought safety in Britain

A refugee leaves home under pressure rather than simply choosing a better job elsewhere. For Jewish refugees in the 1930s, the central pressure was persecution. After Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power in Germany in 1933, government policies increasingly excluded Jews from society and encouraged antisemitism. Losing livelihoods and fearing violence drove people to escape.

Britain offered the possibility of safety from Nazi persecution. Existing family connections, knowledge of English and the hope of travelling onwards to another country could also attract refugees. However, restrictive immigration policies elsewhere reduced their choices. Approximately 60,000 Jewish refugees reached Britain before the Second World War.

This migration therefore connected events abroad with decisions made in Britain. Nazi persecution created the urgent need to leave; British admission policies and the willingness of people to help shaped who could escape.

Sympathy and hostility in the 1930s

There was no single British response to Jewish refugees. Some people offered practical help, while others treated their arrival as a threat.

The economic depression helped fuel hostility. Around 2.2 million people in Britain were unemployed in 1933, and some newspapers encouraged fears that refugees would compete for scarce jobs. A 1938 Daily Mail article headed ‘German Jews Pouring into This Country’ portrayed arrivals as a problem for police and port authorities. Such language encouraged readers to view refugees as unwanted outsiders rather than people escaping danger.

Kristallnacht, on 9–10 November 1938, increased public sympathy. These Nazi attacks targeted Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues, and approximately 30,000 Jewish men were arrested. The violence made the danger facing Jews more apparent.

The Kindertransport brought around 10,000 mainly Jewish children to Britain in 1938–39, without their parents. Children were placed in foster care. Rescue offered safety, but separation from their families was a painful part of their experience.

The British Jewish community and charitable organisations played an important role. The Central British Fund for German Jewry promised financial support for refugees, helping to answer government concerns about the cost of admitting them. Sympathy therefore mattered most when it became practical assistance: organising journeys, finding accommodation and paying living expenses.

Admission did not mean unrestricted welcome

Britain's willingness to admit some refugees existed alongside controls. Following Germany's annexation of Austria in March 1938, Britain introduced a visa requirement to restrict arrivals.

Certain categories had easier access, including children admitted through the Kindertransport and refugees willing to undertake work in understaffed occupations. Some distinguished scientists and artists were also admitted. Other refugees needed a British guarantor who would support them financially.

These conditions meant that danger alone did not guarantee admission. Access to sponsors, money or an accepted occupation could affect a person's chances of reaching safety. Many admissions were initially temporary, leaving refugees uncertain about their future.

Wartime suspicion and contributions

The outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 changed the position of refugees already in Britain. People who had escaped Nazi persecution could nevertheless be investigated as ‘enemy aliens’ because of their nationality. Many were interned, particularly during the security fears of 1940, including on the Isle of Man.

This reveals an important distinction between nationality and loyalty. A refugee associated with an enemy country was not necessarily a supporter of its government; Jewish refugees had often fled precisely because that government persecuted them.

Internment attracted public criticism, and many refugees were subsequently released. Jewish migrants contributed to the British war effort through the Pioneer Corps, other military service and work at home. Their experiences combined refuge and opportunity with suspicion and detention.

Migrants' descendants also responded to the war. Emmanuel Levy, born in Manchester in 1900 to Russian-Jewish parents, expressed anger at Nazi persecution through his painting Crucifixion in 1942. This illustrates how events in Europe affected people whose families had already established lives in Britain.

After the war, many Jewish refugees remained, gained citizenship and put down permanent roots. Their contributions extended into science, medicine, publishing and the arts. The Polish-born Jewish artist Josef Herman, who reached Glasgow in 1940 and later settled in Wales, became known for portraying working people, including miners. Settlement could create new opportunities without erasing the losses or identity connected with migration.

How war displaced Polish people

Polish migration was also shaped by war, but not all Polish refugees followed the same route or had the same experiences.

In September 1939, Germany invaded Poland from the west and the Soviet Union invaded from the east. Occupation displaced families and destroyed their security. Soviet authorities deported many people from eastern Poland to Siberia in 1940–41, where journeys and living conditions caused severe hardship.

An amnesty in 1941 allowed survivors to leave Soviet captivity. Some civilians reached refugee camps in India, Africa and the Middle East; others joined Polish forces fighting alongside the Allies. Polish airmen contributed to the Battle of Britain, while the Second Polish Corps fought at Monte Cassino in Italy. These were distinct contributions to the Allied war effort.

Why many Poles stayed after 1945

The end of the war did not make returning home straightforward. Poland came under Soviet influence, and many displaced Poles regarded return as difficult or dangerous. For them, settlement in Britain was not simply a search for higher wages: it was also a consequence of being unable to return safely to their own country.

The Polish Resettlement Act 1947 enabled people connected with the armed forces to remain and work in Britain. More than 150,000 Polish people settled through this scheme in the early post-war years. Thousands more arrived through the European Volunteer Workers programme, which recruited displaced people from camps in Europe.

British support had two important motives. Polish forces had contributed to Allied victory, and Britain needed workers for post-war recovery. Settlers helped fill shortages in coal mining, building, agriculture, textiles, engineering, hotels and catering.

Some government officials regarded white, Christian Eastern Europeans as particularly desirable settlers. This shows how racial and cultural assumptions influenced official ideas about who would fit into British society. It does not mean that every Polish refugee found acceptance or an easy life.

Building a new life while maintaining Polish identity

Employment did not necessarily restore a refugee's previous position. Some Poles who had held skilled or professional jobs before the war could not obtain equivalent work in Britain. They faced the combined difficulties of lost status, wartime trauma and separation from home.

Settlers responded by building communities. They pooled resources to establish Polish clubs, churches and Saturday schools. These provided mutual support and helped children maintain Polish language and culture. Oral testimony from a former Polish airman, ‘Jan’, describes the cooperation needed to establish a community near Leicester.

Jewish and Polish experiences show both opportunity and hardship. Britain offered safety, work and the possibility of permanent settlement, but refugees also encountered restrictions, suspicion and personal loss. Government action mattered, yet charities and migrants' own community-building were equally important in turning arrival into a lasting home.